December 7, September 11 and January 6.
They are dates seared into our collective memory for all time. The first two were evil attacks on our democracy from outside our country while the third was the more insidious evil from within.
It is the duty of every patriot to destroy this sedition before it destroys us.
Please share widely!
The GOP had its chance for a bipartisan commission. Now the House should just charge a committee of their own members to do it.
Abolish the damn filibuster — the last vestige of Jim Crow — to destroy the anti-majoritarian tyranny of the minority as the 54 to 35 Senate vote proved again!
This one surprised me since I thought it took 40 votes to sustain a filibuster and they did get 3/5 of those present and voting. However, can we PLEASE stop automatically connecting it to Jim Crow. That is NOT the reason we have a filibuster, which long predates Jim Crow and arose from a sense of collegiality that figured we might as well let everyone have their say. I know the most (in)famous use of it was Strom Thurmond against the Civil Rights Act, but at least he did it the right way and stood up and talked for hours on end (only to see CRA ultimately pass anyway). Where it went off the rails was when it was decided that the mere threat of one halted further action on a given item. Robert’s Rules has a higher threshold, but also assumes that the question is automatically ordered when nobody seeks recognition. What I would have loved to have seen is after this vote the presiding officer ask if anyone wanted to actually speak and if not call the vote anyway. We also need a VP who is willing to act truly as President of the Senate with all that title implies. Anyone who doesn’t like it can throw a fit on C-SPAN.
“…The Republican minority just mounted a partisan filibuster against an independent commission to report on 1/6. Both efforts should have moved forward in a solidly bipartisan way. But out of fear or fealty to donald trump the Republican minority just prevented the American people from getting the full truth about 1/6…” Senate Majority Leader Schumer
Something is obviously wrong with a political system where the party responsible for attempting a coup can block a bipartisan independent investigation into said attempted coup.
Fred is absolutely right to connect the filibuster to Jim Crow. It wasn’t just a one time performance by Strom Thurmond. During the ’50’s and ’60’s it was a constant obstacle to getting any civil rights legislation in the Senate.
The other anti-democratic rule was at the United Nations. The veto power of the big five was held up as an example of one country abusing the process to prevent progress. It might not be a bad thing to abolish the veto at the UN. Like the filibuster, it is subject to abuse.
That is one happenstance consequence of the filibuster, but I get so tired of the left using it and slavery as the goto bogeymen for everything else they don’t like. As for the UN, the idea was that the great powers would be the leaders who would set an agenda they could all live with and bring everyone else along, though the current five may not best reflect global realities.
Opposing investigations seems to be a pattern. https://thehill.com/policy/international/541480-biden-state-department-international-criminal-court-unfairly-targeting-israel-probe
You’ve had a one-track mind on this issue lately!
A lady once confronted Winston Churchill at a party “Sir Winston, you’re drunk!”
“And you’re ugly”, Churchill replied. “And tomorrow I will be sober”.
The Republican Party has distilled itself down to a concentrated pool of white supremists that is a minority in the USA. As a militant minority, it cannot accept any form of democracy or even a constitution that does not fully support it. All that matters is the group. January 6th, Trump’s failure to release his tax records, the two failed impeachments, the almost endless list of political pardons to his criminal supporters….all fall into place when one sees what this militant minority is up against. There is not other way for them to retain power.
The Puke Party is a dinosaur that is refusing to become extinct.
“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.” ERICH FROMM; The Sane Society
54 senators who voted for 1/6 commission represent 87 MILLION more Americans than 35 GOP senators who voted against it.